The England star waltzed around three challenges before firing in a 20-yard shot as some familiar old Arsene Wenger-era frailties came back to haunt Arsenal’s new Spanish manager in his first competitive game in charge.
But City manager Pep Guardiola admits that even now the transfer window has closed in the Premier League, the Etihad hierarchy may still find Sterling as hard to tie down as the Arsenal defence did at the Emirates.
“I’m not a sports director, not even a manager – I’m a trainer,” said Guardiola, as City continue to seek a commitment beyond 2020. “I try to make a good team spirit in the locker room and win games.
”We are delighted with him and would like Raheem to stay. We’ll do our effort to make him feel we count on him – and we do count on him.
“We arrived after a difficult season and I told him I want to help him and would like him to be happy. But in the end the agents may not have agreements and that may not happen. But he knows and his agent knows we like him and want him a lot.”
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Sterling cupped his ears to the Arsenal fans in celebration of his goal but said it was a response to all those critics who suggested the 23-year-old had failed to live up to his Manchester City form while on international duty in Russia this summer.
“I couldn’t wait for my holidays to finish,” he said. “I needed to get back and I’m really happy I could be involved today. I wanted to play and it’s great that we got three points.
“There’s a lot of talking and I just put the celebration in there. It means nothing. I have just got to keep improving and doing well. We’ve just got to focus on ourselves and we need to get these games out of the way one by one.”
Emery faces the same challenge and having failed for the 11th time in 11 attempts to overcome Guardiola, the next game at Chelsea on Saturday offers little in the way of reprieve.
“Each match is different,” he said. “We want to prepare something for each match. But our personality is important. Our team, with more time, will play with this personality. We need to improve this personality with better performances on the pitch.
“Next week we have to continue what we have done this week. Against Chelsea, we will analyse the opposition and we will assess how to win this game.
“Today, we finished with the spirit I want. The team, for 90 minutes, they ran, they tried, they pushed.
“But we need to improve all collective and individual aspects.”